Skaftafell
South Iceland · National park walks
Explore walking routes and glacier-shaped scenery in the Skaftafell area.
- 2 hr visit
- 89 km from Höfn as the crow flies
Did you know?
In 1362 the volcano under Öræfajökull produced the largest pumice eruption in Iceland's recorded history and destroyed the settlement here. The district, once Litla Hérað, was renamed Öræfi: "wasteland".
Source
A nearby glacier became another world
Svínafellsjökull, east of Skaftafell, supplied an alien landscape for Interstellar. Save the story as you travel through the glacier country.
Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar used Icelandic glacier landscapes to represent distant worlds. Visit South Iceland identifies Svínafellsjökull among its filming locations. The icy planet belongs to the film’s fiction; the glacier is part of the landscape around Vatnajökull, east of Skaftafell.
This story is anchored at the Skaftafell visitor area, where you can ask park staff about the surrounding landscape. It does not identify a camera position or provide access to Svínafellsjökull. The park has issued a landslide warning for that glacier, so the film connection is best kept as context rather than treated as an invitation onto the ice.
Sources: south.is, filminiceland.com, vatnajokulsthjodgardur.is, south.is
The waterfall inside a pattern of cooling rock
Svartifoss’s columns formed as a thick body of lava cooled, contracted and cracked.
The columns framing Svartifoss can look almost architectural. The national park explains that lava filled an old riverbed here around 300,000 years ago. As the rock slowly cooled and contracted, it split into columns perpendicular to the cooling surface.
Look at the individual columns, then the pattern across the entire cliff. Their regularity comes from a physical process repeated through the cooling rock, while the waterfall gives the scene a constantly changing centre. Reach the falls on Skaftafell’s marked walking routes and allow time for the hike. The visitor centre can help you choose a route suited to the day’s conditions.
Sources: vatnajokulsthjodgardur.is, south.is, vatnajokulsthjodgardur.is
